Spam and Wonton Soup Cured My Fear of Tinned Meat

In many ways, I have been scarred by Spam. The tight budget of my childhood years meant I often took Spam sandwiches to school, and soon discovered that not only were they the most unswappable of sandwiches in the playground—refused even by those desperate to get rid of egg butties—but they also carried something of a social stigma. No one ate Spam if they could help it.

And yet, had I been born in Hong Kong, I'd have been food royalty with my exotic Spam sarnies. It seems how you feel about Spam is just a matter of perspective. Walk into any cha chaan teng in Hong Kong (the equivalent of an English greasy spoon) and you'll find Spam proudly featured on the menu.

"Spam is hugely popular in the Far East," says Sarah Fox, general manager of Cha Chaan Teng, a London restaurant that takes both its name and the style of its food from the ubiquitous Hong Kong cafes. "After the Second World War, people wanted to capitalise on the number of Americans and Brits who were in Hong Kong, so they simplified the food to suit Western tastes. Which is where Spam, macaroni, white bread, peanut butter, Coca Cola, and condensed milk come in. These are classic elements in cha chaan teng food."

Spam was one of the foods that represented the glamour of the American way of life. It was a desirable foodstuff. Remember the Famous Five and their beloved "luncheon meat," or how you feel about eating pho or ramen or whatever the most interesting Asian food you've ever tasted is. Now transpose that feeling to canned meat. That's how the people of Hong Kong felt about American army rations, including Spam.

So, while us Brits were eschewing Spam as undesirable processed ham, fit only for Monty Python sketches sending up the silliness of the word itself, on the coast of the South China Sea, people were thrilled to taste the flavours of the West. They switched out noodles for macaroni and sliced pieces of Spam into the bowl to make an Asian American fusion soup.

Cha Chaan Teng wants to give us an idea of how the Chinese view Spam, among other things, and to maybe change our minds.

"We wanted to take Westernised Chinese dishes like sweet and sour pork and give them a bit more Eastern flair," explains Fox. "And we wanted to take some cha chaan teng classics and develop them."

Because, however popular Spam might have been in the post-war Far East, it certainly hasn't been to 21st century London tastes (or even late 20th century tastes, as my childhood lunchtimes proved) thus far.

"The traditional macaroni soup is a really mellow chicken stock, with slices of cold Spam, and a fried egg on the top," says Fox. "We've evolved it so there's a choice of different base stocks, macaroni, lots of fresh vegetables around the edge, wontons, and then a pan-fried slice of Spam which is golden brown with coconut shallot crumbled on top. We're hopeful that it will win people over."

I'm not sure. It sounds like polishing a turd to me. I mean, Spam is Spam. How can it be made anything other than it is? But then maybe my memory belies me and it's not actually all that bad. Fox, an American by birth, hadn't come across a Spam aversion until she encountered it in the UK.

"In America, spam and fried eggs is totally common," she says. "We'd love to play a little part in showing people here that there's this great salty, savoury, meaty deliciousness to be had."

It seems I have no choice. I must revisit the luncheon meat.

Cha Chaan Teng head chef Emil Tryka also has trouble understanding my innate aversion but thinks he can help.

"I've been cooking with Spam for years," he says. While working at nobu, one of his colleagues showed him how to bread and fry it, and his wife is a big fan of Spam at home. "The Chinese cook it til it's dry, so it's crispy. I just caramelise it, which I think is more authentic and tasty."

Tryka opens a lunchbox containing pre-sliced pieces of Spam. It is exactly the disconcertingly pink colour I remember, reminiscent of chubby babies.

But before we get to the Spam, Tryka breaks me in gently, grilling pork ribs that have been braising for hours in Coca Cola, and plating up a brick of peanut butter French toast made with white bread and smothered in condensed milk. These are both really tasty and deliciously dirty at one and the same time. The pork falls off the bone and the sweetness of the Coke has caramelised out some of the sickly sweetness. The peanut butter French toast is an oozy sweet/savoury brick of a heart attack. Perhaps I can be persuaded by Spam after all, if this is the Asianisation of other American ingredients?

The Spam hits the pan with a sizzle, while Tryka ladles a pork stock that has been simmering overnight into a bowl, then macaroni tubes, wontons, and carefully arranged slithers of different vegetables—carrots, radish, courgette, Chinese greens. It already looks like an odd combo, but then I'd think nothing of ramen noodles in a bowl like this. The slice of Spam joins the vegetables in the bowl, sprinkled with the coconut and shallots, and on top of the lot, a fried egg, browned on the bottom, runny on the top.

For all the oddness of the component parts, it smells great. There's only one thing for it. After all, I've eaten sheep's testicles, the eyes of fish, and even tripe. I have no good excuse to not eat the Spam soup. I stick the spoon in, set my prejudice aside, and try it.

It's … well, it's Spam. It is salty, savoury and meaty as Fox described. It's still disconcertingly baby pink, though now with brown edges where it's caramelised. It's tasty and slightly chewy and pretty much as I remember it, but hot, and surrounded by a lot of other things that are tasty.

In short, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's not bad at all.

Yet I can't shake the internal sound of Terry Jones as the woman behind the counter of a greasy spoon shouting "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam" in my head, or the feeling of being the girl at school with the only unswappable sandwiches.

My prejudice is purely psychological: I eat the bowl to the bottom. A bowl of Spam soup can't fix my girlhood lunchtime traumas (only therapy can do that, I suspect) but it could help change our view on the tinned meat. Perhaps.